


One

by kineticstars



Series: Because I’m Weird [1]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Autistic Meltdown, Autistic Spencer Reid, Canon Autistic Character, Gen, I Don't Even Know, Maybe - Freeform, Sensory Overload, Spencer Reid is Autistic, autistic headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:28:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26935135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kineticstars/pseuds/kineticstars
Summary: Spencer Reid has a meltdown at a party.
Series: Because I’m Weird [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1965400
Comments: 1
Kudos: 141





	One

**Author's Note:**

> Autistic Reid fic. This is my first time posting on here and I don’t even know if I’ll keep doing this but yeah. I’m not autistic (but I do have adhd and I’m hyperfixating hard on cm) so this may or may not be an inaccurate depiction of a meltdown?? Either way I don’t mean to offend anyone and am continuing to educate myself so please comment if I did anything wrong! Also sorry it’s so wordy, like I said I’m hyperfixating hard on cm and wrote this at like 2 am.

“Welcome back, crime fighters.” 

The team walks into the bullpen, greeted by Garcia standing with her hands behind her back. “In celebration of such a successful case, I have decided that you are all invited to a party one of my friends from support group is having tonight.”  
“You took it upon yourself to invite us to a party someone else is having?” JJ asked with a smile.  
“Well, yes, but I asked them, and they said it’s totally fine for you guys to come.”  
Spencer rubbed the strap of his messenger bag. “I don’t know—“  
“No, Boy Wonder, you have to come,” Garcia took her hands from behind her back, revealing seven printed invitations on pink paper. “I printed these out, so it’s official. You’re coming.”  
She placed an invite in each profiler’s hand. “There’s the address and time.”  
Spencer took his invitation and stared at it, eyes moving across the black text that stood out from the bright paper. He didn’t like parties; the team knew that. He also didn’t like strangers, or unfamiliar situations in general. But he ignored the voice in is head telling him not to go. It was for Garcia, and he liked Garcia. Besides, it wasn’t like he had anything better to do.  
__

“Did you bring work with you or something?” Morgan joked, gesturing at Spencer’s bag that he’d brought with him.  
“No, I...I just brought a book with me...in case I get bored.”  
This was partially true. His bag was familiar and safe. He liked to fidget with the strap and zipper. He kept a pencil in it as well, and today he brought a book just in case he needed to...escape. 

Spencer tried to stay around someone he knew as more and more people filtered in. But it got harder as his friends began to socialize, starting conversations with every person who walked through the door. The party didn’t start for a few more minutes, but Garcia had insisted that they arrive early. Maybe it was better that way. Spencer felt a little less on edge. More people arrived, and he pushed himself towards the back of the room, standing awkwardly and surveying the situation.  
“Hey.”  
Spencer jumped a little and looked to see a guy standing in front of him. He was a little taller than Spencer with an athletic build, blonde hair, dimples. It was clear he wanted to talk. His hand was out, indicating he wanted Spencer to shake it. Spencer started at the hand in front of him, unsure of what to do. He didn’t like handshakes. He didn’t like the way being touched made him feel, so he tried to avoid unfamiliar touch at all possible.  
“The amount of pathogens transferred via handshake is staggering. It’s actually safer to kiss,” he said. That was his go to explanation for why he didn’t shake hands; it was better than saying ‘I don’t know’ when people asked why.  
The man put his hand in his pocket and chuckled.  
“Okay then. I’m John.”  
“I’m Dr. Spencer Reid.”  
“Doctor? Like, a medical doctor?”  
“Uh, no, I actually work for the FBI as a profiler. But I have three PhDs, I’m actually working on my fourth in religion. The title ‘doctor’ is actually Latin for teacher and originally had nothing to do with the medical field, so me being a doctor just means—“  
“I know what it means,” John chuckled again. “You’re an interesting guy, you know that?”  
Spencer knew that when people said he was ‘interesting’ that was a euphemism for weird. Atypical. Different. And it wasn’t like those were bad things, but they carried a negative connotation. That’s what his teachers called him in elementary school. “Spencer is certainly an interesting child,” they’d say, and then counter that by going on about his intelligence. He couldn’t make friends with the other kids, he panicked at the sound the intercom made for morning announcements. That made him ‘interesting’. But he was smart enough for that not to matter. Until he became an adult, of course, and his intelligence was part of what made him interesting, weird, atypical.  
“So, are you friends with Payton?” John asked.  
“No, I’m...well, my friend from work, Penelope Garcia, she knows Payton, and invited us to come.”  
“Oh, nice. I’ve met Penelope a few times, she’s cool.”  
“Yeah, we both like Doctor Who. That’s cool. She’s the only friend of mine that goes to comic con with me, so...” He paused for a second, analyzing John’s body language. He wasn’t making any effort to get away from the conversation. So Spencer went on.  
“Which is a shame, really, because Doctor Who is a great piece of science fiction. It’s been on for over 60 years, but really hit its peak when it came back in the early 2000s. I prefer the older seasons, my favorites are the ones with Tom Baker. See, with Doctor Who, they cycle through different actors every so often...” He went on for about five minutes, rambling about Doctor Who and was about to connect it to Star Trek before John interjected.  
“It was great talking to you, Spencer,” he said, smiling and walking off.  
Spencer gave a small wave and squeezed the strap of his bag. Payton, the host of the party, was at the front of the room, announcing that it had begun. Then the music started, and Spencer flinched at how loud it was. He recovered after a second, taking a deep breath and squeezing the strap harder. The evenly diffused overhead lights went out, replaced with pulsating multicolored strobes.  
He noticed Hotch standing a few feet away from him, so he walked over. “Are you enjoying yourself?” Hotch asked. He had a cup of something in his hand, Spencer didn’t know. He hadn’t ventured beyond the living room the whole time he’d been here. “I guess, yeah,” Spencer replied. He followed Hotch’s gaze, looking out at the mass of people in front of him, disappearing and reappearing as the lights flashed in and out. He had the strap in a death grip now. He was getting uncomfortable and trying not to show it. He was trying to have fun, but he couldn’t ignore the slight pain behind his eyes as the light came and went.  
“I saw you talking to someone. Did you have a good conversation?”  
“It was pretty one sided,” Spencer admitted.  
“That’s better than nothing, right? Do you want Garcia to introduce you to someone?”  
Spencer was grateful for the understanding Hotch had of him. At any gathering, Hotch would introduce Spencer to a group of people. Hotch would bring up something Spencer liked, and Spencer would dazzle them as he recited facts and statistics.

“Reid?”  
Spencer blinked, then turned his gaze away from the lights and towards Hotch. “I’m fine,” he said, although he wasn’t sure what it was in response to. He was fine, he didn’t need Hotch to help him talk to people. He was fine, he wasn’t getting overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of the party. He was fine, he wasn’t getting a headache and he wasn’t feeling anxious. 

He was fine. 

Hotch studied his face. “Alright,” he said. He stood next to Spencer for a few more seconds before a stranger brushed past Reid and started talking to his unit chief. Hotch was whisked away into conversation, into the blinking crowd, but Spencer was stuck. The person had only brushed past him, they had barely touched him, really. But it felt like a brand on his skin. He felt...wrong. And it didn’t help that more people had arrived and it was harder and harder for Spencer to stay separate against the wall. The song changed and the bass felt like a drum in his brain. Outside, he would try going outside. Just to center himself, and then come back. 

He pushed past people, and he started to feel panicky. The feeling of *wrong* increased. It felt like he was climbing a mountain and getting more and more out of breath. His head hurt, his eyes hurt, his ears hurt. He turned around and went back the way he had come. He squinted; the light seemed brighter than it actually was, going in and out and he felt it as it happened. He felt along the wall until he reached the end of it and tried looking for the bathroom. Eventually he selected a random door, and fortunately it was the right one. 

His breathing was quick and shallow, and his hands were shaking as he closed and locked the door. He didn’t bother turning on the light. He slid down the door and sat on the floor, trying to steady himself. He ran his thumb and index finger up and down the strap of his bag, he squeezed it, he fiddled with the zipper. Eventually the feeling of the strap pressing into his back made him uncomfortable, so he took it off and instead squeezed it to his chest. It wasn’t working, the vibrations of the music making indentations in his skull. Spencer listed statistics in his head, and he would have preferred to say them out loud, to feel the words flow off his tongue and into his mind and calm him down. But he couldn’t speak, the statistics didn’t help, only mix together with the sounds and feelings in his head. He used his right hand to feel along the seam of his bag, while flapping his left. It was like he was holding on to a rope that had been cut, and he was holding on to the broken end, falling into the water.  
Tears fell down his face and he couldn’t control them. He was angry, he was uncomfortable, and he definitely wasn’t fine. He didn’t like the team seeing him like this. It didn’t happen often, but when it did he had to get away. It happened when he was going to see his dad; he could barely speak, and he walked off and shook his hand and fidgeted with his bag and tried not to cry. It happened when Maeve got kidnapped, and his feelings were washing over him all at once and he want outside and he flapped his hands where no one could see him. It happened when the headaches first started and he went into the unsub’s house and took off his bulletproof vest and bounced his leg because everything was too bright and too loud and too much and he couldn’t keep it in anymore.  
He couldn’t let the team see him. They’d treat him like a baby, like they always did when something was wrong. Like they didn’t trust his emotions or how he’d react to certain things. They would keep things from him, and they’d talk about him behind his back, about how he was...

Interesting.  
Weird.  
Atypical.  
*Different*. 

He went on like this for a while, holding onto his bag like a lifeline. He didn’t know how long it had been; he was pretty sure someone had knocked at one point, but he didn’t do anything. His breathing had steadied slightly, his headache was less intense. He still felt jumpy and on edge but...better. Definitely not great, maybe bordering on okay, just barely. But he felt better. 

He splashed water on his face, and tried looking at himself without turning on the lights. He was sure he looked like he’d been crying, but it didn’t matter. All he wanted was to go home. 

Spencer unlocked the door and opened it, trying his best to walk casually into the hallway. He kept his head down to avoid the lights and focused on his footsteps in an attempt to drown out the noise. He kept his right hand tight around the strap of his bag. He didn’t notice where he was going and ran into someone. It sent shockwaves across his skin and he took a step back. 

“Spence?” 

It was JJ. She put a hand on his arm and he flinched, moving back even further. “Spence, are you...”  
“Don’t...don’t touch me,” he said, taking a deep breath.  
“Spence, are you okay?” She asked.  
He didn’t know the answer. Well, he did. It was obviously no, he wasn’t okay. But he couldn’t explain how he was feeling. He didn’t have the words, he didn’t have *any* words. He felt wrong, weird, atypical, different. And he knew that feeling would get worse as all his team members left with him because they were the only people who now how weird and atypical and how different he was. He would have said he was fine. But he didn’t want to lie to JJ, and he wanted to stop feeling so wrong, so different. 

“I want to go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to keep this in line with how Reid’s autism is shown in the show. He’s intentionally autistic coded but it’s obvious he doesn't know he’s autistic, so that’s why I didn’t use any terminology like meltdown, sensory overload, or stimming. I wrote Reid as carrying his bag around with him because I headcanon it as a comfort object for him bc I noticed he has it with him a lot and fidgets with it quite a bit. I also noticed that every time Reid gets overwhelmed by something he leaves the room so I headcanon he leaves to stim and doesn't want the team to see him (I’m a very stimmy person and tend to flap my hands so that’s why I had him stim that way). Again sorry it’s so wordy, this is my first fic and I have no idea what I’m doing 😂


End file.
